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Clearly I didn't know he had been re-born as an untouchable relief ace.

He has never really struck me as the type who profiles to do well in relief, but less pitchers have successfully made the conversion. The Mets have been flinging feces against the wall for years in their bullpens; at some point, their luck has to turn a little. Shouldn't be hard to unseat Farnsworth...

He is the least enjoyable pitcher I have ever seen, at any level. He wasn't the worst pitcher I've ever seen...just the worst to watch. He could singlehandedly take the joy out of a baseball game.

I had the same qualms when watching him as a Met last year, but this season he's somehow not as bad. Still has problems hitting the zone, sure, but it seems as though he only pitches from the stretch when he comes out in relief, which keeps things going at a pretty nice clip.

I'm in a small minority but I liked Daisuke. He could be incredibly exasperating but when he was on there was a style to his pitching that was a lot of fun to watch. I also always got the impression he genuinely cared. When he left the mound in New York after getting bombed in his final start with the Red Sox he was visibly emotional.

I think it's somewhat of a template for how the team might be successful going forward.

Do they bench the team leader in WAR for CYoung or Lagares when the latter returns? D'Arnaud looks better at the plate than his line indicates, Tejada looks worse (among the league leaders in IBB, inflating his OB%), and at some point Granderson will start hitting. So on the plus side, they're 2 games above .500 with none of their hitters playing above their ability.

I attended this gem back in 1989 in which Joe Boever had a 34-pitch save, just missing the cutoff for the list in #13. What made Boever's inning special was that he only faced 4 batters, but went over 10 pitches with two of them (11 to Benny Distefano, 14 to Jose Lind). I checked the top five on the list above and none of them threw 10 pitches to a batter, they just faced a lot of batters.

I see that there have been 20 blown saves of an inning or less and 35+ pitches. And that my PI subscription has run out so I can't get the full report.

The full report shows 200 since 1988 (plus another 2 more before then that BBRef somehow knows about). The most pitches in one was Danny Cox's 49-pitch effort. Thing is that he blew the game in the 7th, so it wasn't a classic closer meltdown, just a wrecked starter turned middle reliever meltdown. Since 1988 there have been 56 blown saves of 35+ pitches that also include a game finished, headed by 46-pitch outings by Todd Jones, Heath Bell, and Travis Harper.

BBRef knows about 73 outings of all types with <= 1 IP and 50+ pitches. The most was Wade Davis's 69 pitch, 1 inning start last year. Most by a reliever was Scott Brow's 67 pitches for the Jays against the Red Sox. The box score is a manager's nightmare. The starter gives up three walks and three doubles and is yanked after only getting one out. Then the reliever comes in and the results are passed ball, wild pitch, walk, single, walk, double, double, groundout, intentional walk, walk, groundout. He gets a guy in the second, then goes walk, single, walk, single. Then he's yanked and sent down to Syracuse for the rest of the year.

The really impressive line from that list is No. 6, Brian Wilson, who managed to get the save and give up no runs in 39 pitches. Loaded the bases on two walks and a hit, averaging 6.5 pitches per batter. So you'd think he went to a full count on all of the batters, right? No. Just two of the six, actualy, and he even got a first-pitch out in there!

1. Pedro Feliz drew an eight-pitch walk. (8)
2. Humberto Quintero struck out on a 2-2 count. (13)
3. Geoff Blum popped out on the first pitch. (14)
4. Cory Sullivan hit an infield single on a 2-2 count. (19)
5. Michael Bourn walked on a 3-1 count. (24)
6. Kaz Matsui flied out to left on a 3-2 count that included nine foul balls. (39)

In a 2-1 game, with the bases loaded and two out, that 15-pitch at bat must have been awesome to watch.

[Thinking more about that, it probably was a big deal at the time, and I just missed it. 2009-11 weren't great years for following baseball for me.]

SAN FRANCISCO — It's hard to say which part was toughest for Giants closer Brian Wilson while he protected Tim Lincecum's decision and a 2-1 victory over the Houston Astros on Saturday:

Throwing 39 pitches without allowing a run? Outlasting Kazuo Matsui in a bases-loaded, 15-pitch battle to end the game? Enduring a bobbled, bang-bang play on the base paths and a dropped foul tip, both of which could've ended it sooner?

Or keeping a straight face through it all?

"I couldn't help it," Wilson said. "After a while, it was just comical. What was it, 15 pitches? I had to step off and laugh. It was like, 'What are they thinking (in the dugout) right now?' "

It was rhetorical pondering. Wilson knew exactly what was boiling in Bruce Bochy's gut as the manager paced himself into a trench.

"Willy had the nerve to ask me after the game, 'Were you worried?' " Bochy said. "Nah, I like seeing a bases-loaded, two-outs-in-the-ninth (pitch) 10 times."

Wilson wouldn't have been laughing afterward if he didn't have so much throttle in his right arm. His confrontation with Matsui was so epic, Ridley Scott might have already purchased the film rights.

It started with a called strike and a swing-and-a-miss. Then two balls. Then four fouls, including a slider — the only pitch of the 15 that wasn't a fastball — that rattled out of Bengie Molina's glove. Then another ball to run the count full.

Then five more foul balls. And finally, a fly out that Andres Torres squeezed in left field.

Wilson's tamest fastball was 96 mph. His final pitch was 97.

"It's pretty much country hardball at that point," Bochy said. "I think everybody knew what was coming."

Wilson said: "I don't want to lose a game on my second-best pitch. At 2-2, I'll try to sneak a slider in the back door. But at 3-2, it's, 'Here it is. Here we go.' I've got a lot of confidence in my fastball. Grip it and rip it."

Afterward, Wilson was just as fast with the one-liners:

"I'm at pitch No. 30 out there, and I've still got 10 more that I didn't even know about."

And this stripped-down pearl: "You can either fail or you can win. Failing isn't that fun."

The Giants are having a lot of fun with Lincecum (5-0) on the mound, winning in seven of his eight starts. But the bullpen had blown his decision in each of his previous three outings, and there was little margin for error after Juan Uribe's two-run home run off Roy Oswalt provided a lead in the fourth.

If the relievers had held firm all year behind Lincecum, he would be 8-0 through eight starts — something no Giants pitcher has done since Billy Pierce in 1962.

This victory was a study in perseverance. Lincecum felt mostly out of whack against the Astros, walked the leadoff hitter in three of the first six innings, decided to scrap the windup in the seventh and pushed every last button to get through the eighth.

Lincecum had two runners on base and already had benefited from a diving stop by Ryan Rohlinger at third base, but Bochy decided to give his ace one more hitter. Lincecum's first two pitches to Hunter Pence were at chin level before he retired him on a fly ball.

"When it's time to make a pitch, he's as good as anybody I've seen," Bochy said. "He found a way there."

Wilson's way usually involves a high wire. But his bases-loaded jam wasn't entirely his fault. Rohlinger bobbled pinch hitter Cory Sullivan's ground ball just long enough to turn it into a charitable single.

Then Michael Bourn walked to load the bases, Matsui walked to the plate, and the safety bar came down.

"Sure is fun," Wilson said. "Couldn't pick a better time to have recess."